Comments danielbell has made

Where's Obama?

I was disappointed in Obama after he didn't participate in the grist forum on global warming. For a time after I was leaning towards Clinton because of it.

Why won't he attend this one?

Does Obama's lack of participation in these forums hurt his green cred?

David, can you shed any light on this?On Clinton only candidate to appear at energy forum on Thurs. posted 1 year, 9 months ago 13 Responses

crap

I live in Berkeley and this scrapes the bejebus out of me. Five years of spraying? May as well pick up a smoking habit to go with that. On Aerial spraying of pesticide on Bay Area given OK posted 1 year, 9 months ago 17 Responses

Where'd I put that ten foot pole?

What I would say to a candidate as an adviser and what I want as an intellectually honest voter are two different things.

There are fewer voters (like Grist readers) who are intellectually engaged and interested in voting for a candidate who will take the most reasoned and scientifically based stance on a particular issue.

There are far more voters who are less interested in challenging their beliefs to stand up to scientific and rational arguments. In fact, they publicly and proudly reject the rationalism and nuance that science requires.

Therefore, I'd be surprised to see the candidates touch this thing with a ten foot pole. Yes, yes, yes - We need a better understanding of the science in our country and in our politics. The sad truth is that the voters aren't ready. Perhaps with a few decades of honest political leadership, enough children will have been given an education equal to this challenge.

On the topic of political honesty and politics:

I was inspired to hear Barack Obama's words on the climate crisis and the need for a new energy policy. He had just gotten done saying that he would not tell the American public what they want to hear, but what they need to hear. Directly after this was the energy policy subject, which elicited very few cheers. This is what the people in that room needed to hear, even if they didn't want to cheer for it.

I hope this debate happens.

Carbon's Number
On Date set for presidential debate on scientific issues posted 1 year, 9 months ago 7 Responses

Funding research

Well, as the grist comparisons showed me, Obama plans to put 3x as much into a strategic technology fund as Clinton ($50 to $150 B)

Also, lets remember that that while we need 80% by 2050 - to get there we need 2% per year. So if either candidate can just focus on ramping up what we are already doing, we'll be well on our way.

I'm an independent california voter, voting for Obama. On Obama or Clinton: who's greener? posted 1 year, 10 months ago 46 Responses

Greenwashed

Check out this open source group focused on corporate greenwashing:

http://www.wiserearth.org/group/hypocritesOn See how easy it is being Green(TM)! Just use Greenwash! posted 1 year, 10 months ago 4 Responses

Iowa City's Local Food Movement

Hey Kurt,

Thanks for the post, it was a surprise and delight to see. I'm from Iowa City and have eaten at Devotay and other gourmet local food restaurants in Iowa City. I now live in Berkeley which has an alright local food scene of its own. (I'm out here doing green building and wind energy consulting.)

Its pretty easy and tempting for the coastalites to forget that there is a whole continent in between them. However, as far as local food goes, the rest of the country, with its lower population density, is best suited to local food. Iowa in particular has  beautiful soil that could grow almost all the vegetables that currently get petrol trucked across the continent from the central valley.

Keep up the good work.

blogOn An Iowa chef takes issue with Time's Joel Stein posted 1 year, 10 months ago 18 Responses

straw men made from corn stalks

Khosla says:

The primary question is one of cost: how many people will pay $5,000 more (today's typical parallel hybrid premium) for a hybrid that reduces carbon emissions by 25%? Especially when they can get a flex-fuel car that costs about the same as a regular ICE car and can reduce emissions by 75% or more when run on cellulosic biofuels?

Also, Kholsa, you compare hybrids today versus the cellulosic fuels of the indeterminate future. Your point will hold if this comes to pass, and only if. For now, I don't care how many E85 vehicles detroit crams down my throat, because they'll all be filled with gasoline or carbon-intensive(2/3 that of petrol), water-intensive, land-intensive, subsidy-intensive corn ethanol.

Also, these biofuels are going to need a hell of a lot of water, something that will only become more precious. Especially for us Californians who know  which way the snowpack is going. Yes, perhaps brackish water can be used. My understanding is that the water needs to be filtered though, which will be an incentive to just hook up to the municipal supply.

Infrastructure, infrastructure, and... oh yeah, infrastructure. Ethanol is too acidic and can't be  shipped through existing pipelines. Plug-ins require the plug that is already installed in your garage.

Your point of first costs is understood. But biofuels that don't screw the environment in other ways are a hell of a long way off. I think you'd be better off making this argument after that one gets figured out.

Even though first costs are less, long term economic and social equity costs will be higher. Is your vision for the future really just the same one with you at the top instead of big oil? Wouldn't a more inspired vision of the future be one where people own their own power and efficiency in order to increase their real wages? This is where I hope the future come from, bottom up.

Does your argument about the speed with the car fleet can be replaced matter if the environmentally benign bio-fuel comes along and still requires cars to be built specifically to handle it?

Now, parallel hybrids aren't going to get us anywhere. We can all see that. If every car sold today were a parallel hybrid we would still not be lowering overall emissions from transportation.

Also, the cost premium could be lowered with options like battery leasing and so on.

What about smog in cities? Ethanol has a pretty bad emissions profile.

By the way, I'm from Iowa, and I see monoculture of corn as a problem and ethanol as a way for us to swat at the symptoms and not the sickness. See the Omnivore's Dilemma.

As for the media message, ethanol was a baby doll up until just a few months ago. When some decent reporting finally got done. Its not being positioned as anything its not, and this doesn't seem to be affecting subsidy levels anyway.

Vinod, I understand that you're trying to take the big picture into account, I just think you're doing a poor job of it. And anywhow, reductions on the level we need will likely require bio-fuels and hybrids of all kinds.

Mostly, I appreciate you coming to this forum and delineating your views even after a less than even handed analysis by one Grist poster.

Keep your posts coming! I've got plenty of answers to prove you wrong!

carbonsnumber.blogspot.comOn Prius: Green or greenwash? posted 1 year, 10 months ago 36 Responses

relevance and timing

Good point wiscidea,

Gore could really only have an influential impact if he endorsed a candidate before super tuesday. Yet this would risk acrimony if the supported candidate didn't win. If he waits for the general, the balance is not in the democrats favor: those who would listen to Gore are likely already concerned about global warming and hence would vote dem (or 3rd party) while independents may shy away from a Gore supported dem.

He would better serve the situation by simply encouraging people to vote and to check out the candidates' positions on global warming.

What kind of election will it be if both candidates in a general support action on global warming?

carbonsnumber.blogspot.comOn Whom will Gore endorse? posted 1 year, 10 months ago 21 Responses

The nuclear Brand

Stewart Brand has gone all nuclear on us. I used to work one office over from him. The visionary of the long now foundation drives a land rover, seems like a right now choice.

Can we all try to remember that nuclear power plants are so huge that the concrete in them alone requires 18 years of plant operation just to offset the C02 released in plant construction?

The "climate centrist" debate this fall was an interesting and lively one. I'm glad I tried to get into the fray and feel that I learned quite a bit. This is all quite a bit of posturing (grist's peacock :-) but the problem is that we're going to need this to get climate action to pass the 60 vote mark and become a national priority.
Even though my own political views are so far left they've spun around the globe, I'm beginning to favor more centrist politicians. Simply because they are the only ones that can get legislation passed in the morass of washington politics. Joeseph, I think your journalism is quite relevant, the political question is the hardest and most important step in a new energy future.

For all of that, however, science doesn't bend just because politics does. Bill McKibben said it best:

Politics is chasing reality, and the gap between them isn't closing nearly fast enough... The problem lies in how one defines reality. Physics and chemistry demand swift and deep cuts in carbon emissions; political realism says to move slowly. In that fight, there's really only one choice. The tax code can be amended, but the laws of nature can't.

with a side of khosla

Khosla is way off. The ethanol plant that he is funding gets better efficiency at the expense of cows in a CAFO. Read The Omnivore's Dilemma and then tell me this is a more sustainable way of producing fuel.

Powering the average American's daily commute completely with electricity without a change in infrastructure? Doesn't sound like a toy to me.

Thanks for the post Joe, I just picked up your book and I'm looking forward to reading it.

Discuss sustainable cars - wiserearth.org/groups/hypercar

ohgreen.com/blogOn Venture-capital star ain't no clean-tech expert posted 1 year, 11 months ago 54 Responses

I can't get no, regulation

What kind of republican won't allow states to regulate and prefers federal control? Probably the same one that spends hundreds of billions for oil wars but gripes about giving a few dollars to the veterans who fought those wars.

This hairy bollocks is completely illegal. It must have been those judicial activists in the supreme court who told the EPA to regulate.

bay area green building
ohgreen.com/blogOn Breaking: EPA announcing ruling on California waiver at 6:30 Eastern posted 1 year, 11 months ago 3 Responses

journalismo

Eric,

I get your point, the US has put out drastically more per person and over time. Our moral obligation for this is overwhelming.

Yet, your journalism here is sad. This is the most narrow of focus but you present it as the big picture. The picture here is that we are running out of time. And total global emissions matter. All the data suggest now that China is equal or above the US in TOTAL GHG emissions. Again, I understand they have both lower per capita and historic emissions. But figure it out, that total number is still there, and if the whole world doesn't get together to reduce it, it won't matter what moral accounting tricks we apply to try to shirk responsibility. Yes, I care about our moral obligation. But grok this, the climate doesn't.

wiserearth.org/user/danielbell
On There is no comparison between Chinese and American GHG emissions posted 1 year, 11 months ago 41 Responses

hydrogen and seek

Hydrogen is a load of bollocks.

Fuel cells need platinum: has to be mined, extremely expensive, cost doesn't decrease with production

Hydrogen for now has to be produced with water: a story on ecogeek.org shows that a large percentage of all potable water in the US would be needed to run a hydrogen economy, with droughts and water shortages, where the hell is all that water coming from?

No infrastructure: seriously, there's no existing infrastructure

Top down corporate hegemony: they get to keep selling us fuel rather than us getting it for free from our rooftops

Dangerous: well I'd rather not crash with a giant tank of compressed hydrogen in my trunk

hydrogen is shyte, why do you think the industry is supporting it? look at the LA auto show, concept cars that have no chance of commercial viability, that's what the car industry wants, they have no plans to change so they show us this load of hairy bollocks and say "ready for the world when the world is ready"

the world is ready for something useful and practicable, ring me when my electrons are readyOn A new idea for how to transport the stuff in cars posted 2 years ago 28 Responses

references

In response to Michael Shellenberger,

First, I appreciate your thoughtful criticisms and comments on Grist and Dot Earth. Now on to your comments,

2.
Your criticism of Roberts is accurate. I suspect he thinks the analogy is appropriate privately but declines to say whether it's okay publicly.
Free speech and freedom to act are not separate from responsibility. I have the freedom to say your book is worthless drivel without scientific basis. But if you can show that's not true then I may be responsible for libel. If I publicly claim global warming is not true, when it can be proved that I knew otherwise, do I have any responsibility for that speech?

3.
Without fear of what may happen, why should I experience optimism for what could happen?
I'm very optimistic for a new economic reality with greater income equality and lower health care costs. But that optimism is based on the political will to bring change about on a societal level. To summarize, we'll either create a more sustainable and equitable world or we'll be hosed.

Your comments on coal were very clear. But to be crystal, it's the energy we derived from coal and not the coal itself that we ought to praise.

4.
To come back to my earlier point, I also believe this is a time for "human triumph, human ingenuity, and human greatness." But motivation on the level that is needed won't come about until those human geniuses realize that the other option is "ecological collapse, human cruelty, and mass murder." They are yin and yang, inseparable.
Our country mobilized and united unlike any time before for WW2. It was a time of great opportunity and action. But would this country have engaged that many people without the implicit knowledge that failure meant a continent-wide stranglehold by the Nazis?

But I guess I just used a Nazi reference in response to your complaint about a Nazi reference. Allow me to pose you this one question:

If we know that unchecked climate change could bring about mass death on the scale of genocide, do we have a moral duty to speak and act against that possibility?

wiserearth.org/user/danielbellOn Is the analogy between climate change and Hitler's atrocities appropriate? posted 2 years ago 49 Responses

child labor for a sip of coal-a

Jeremy,

I appreciate your pragmatic viewpoint, that coal is here and entrenched. Given that, its unlikely that it will just go away, so we need to accept that and do what we can.
Fair characterization?

Yet, the problem with environmentalists is that they hear facts and are not able to forget them or askew them in their viewpoints. Continued reliance on coal will literally drown us. Do I need to rehash all the negative effects that have already been listed?

The central problem I suspect that most gristers find with your post is that it advocates for moral compromise. Slavery had similar inertia in our economy, and I'm sure it wasn't cheap to transition away from. Or child labor. At the cusp of all these transitions one could advocate for reasoned, centrist, pragmatic viewpoints espousing a slower and measured transition. But that is because we refuse to bring price in line with costs.

Why chase expensive cleaner coal, which still emits  expensive carbon dioxide, with good money? That money ought to go into clean, renewable energy. That is actually the most cost effective long term investment in our economy.

But the long term growth and quality of life investment in our economy is always argued against by conservatives and conservative viewpoints. The conservative viewpoint tells us to hold off and let the status quo keep running a little longer, with incremental changes along the way. The conservative viewpoint was wrong on slavery. It is wrong on coal.

wiserearth.org/user/danielbellOn Jeremy Carl looks at ways to clean up coal posted 2 years ago 13 Responses

greenwashed

Check out the group focused on corporate greenwashing on Wiser Earth:  http://wiserearth.org/group/hypocrites

Wiser Earth is an open source directory of non-profit and NGOs. On Green products largely guilty of greenwashing, says study posted 2 years ago 6 Responses

The gap between politics and reality

I agree with you on both counts David, that a middle ground is a false choice, and that Revkin is overall doing some good work over at NYT.

He offered to have a chat with you and jointly post the discussion. I think you would do well to the journalism and the discussion by accepting this invitation.

Here's my stance:

Tone Matters.
We need inspiration and visionary leaders who will lead us towards a future better than today rather than "not worse" than today.

Laws are laws.
Political laws dictate that you bend your branches just far enough across the river to touch the other branches. The problem is that the laws of physics and chemistry do not bend, they break. These laws demand a level of action beyond our current political will.

To synthesize, we need to focus on the social and economic opportunity that global warming presents, because that will inspire and motivate people. But the only rational solutions to dealing with this are the ones that physics and chemistry demand. Action short of that is not middle ground but no ground at all.

Also, check out Bill McKibben's thoughts on this subject
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007 ...

"We're in a desperate race. Politics is chasing reality, and the gap between them isn't closing nearly fast enough."

So, is it reasonable to chart a course in the middle of politics and reality? Where does that leave you?

wiserearth.org/user/danielbellOn NYT's Andy Revkin pens another stinker on the so-called 'center' of the climate debate posted 2 years ago 42 Responses

Electric Bikes

How do I get more info on how to build my own electric assist bike? I've been wanting to make one for a while.

wiserearth.org/user/danielbellOn Electric motorcycle delivers man to side of van posted 2 years ago 15 Responses

external costs

these discussions about how much coal costs are pretty much irrelevant

The real cost is the on that's borne by third parties, the external cost, or externalities

The externalities from coal generation are huge, it shifts so much of its cost onto society that is a social crime

I have a degree in econ, I hope I don't need to prove to you any more that coal is extremely costly to our society, and that these costs, gone unchecked, will be a major liability to long-term economic growth

we need to stop examining financial decisions in isolation from their real social costs, continuing to do so, which is a hallmark conservative ideal, fundamentally undermines the functioning of the market system

its a market failure
its a political failure

we're just sitting here waiting for the climate failure, anyone got a price quote on that?
try $30 trillion in insurance damagesOn Don't believe the power company hype about coal's low price posted 2 years, 1 month ago 18 Responses

My Review

I recently saw this film at an advanced screening in San Francisco. I was able to speak with the directors of this film in a Q + A and in person.
First off, I've worked with Paul Hawken on the WiserEarth.org project. So I was personally excited to see him in the film.

This film is not a film about global warming. It is about the sustainability of human culture.

As anyone who has read Ishmael, the story of B, or listened to Kenny's comments in the film, they understand that when humun culture's move beyond their ecological limits, the cultures go extinct. This is a large concept, and the most important one we as a culture have ever contemplated. If this film is able to bring this level of thinking into the popular imagination, then it would be, as Paul said, "What an exciting time to be alive."

The film did lack a bit of momentum for the first third, at least it seemed to me. My thinking may have been skewed because, as I watched it without foreknowledge of the eventual outcome, I thought they were taking the subject too broadly and would never be able to fill the breadth with any depth. And I also thought that the inter-splicing of so many different people would not allow a coherent narrative.

Well I was extremely surprised, I admit, when I was totally wrong about this. The film somehow silently gains momentum about a third of way through, and never once loses it for the rest of the film. The soundtrack is wonderful, but I was usually to busy thinking to hear it.
The reason I thought it was too broad in the beginning was because I thought this movie was about global warming, just another inconvenient truth. The film addresses our intention as a human species, it addresses sustainability, it frames the discussion in the true parameters in which global warming resides.

If this film gains popular exposure and acceptance, the impetuous to change our society will never be stronger. I've been in the streets on this fundamental issue for many years, this may be the thing that brings the soccer moms and senior citizens out there with the us 20-somethings too.

Speaking with Nadia, she philosophized that real change may not happen until this is seen as a human rights movement. Comparing this movement with the civil rights movement, and the amount of social unrest and cohesion which propelled that through the laggard politicians of the day.  

"Make the connection" as Leonardo said. This film challenges the viewer to realize the connections between the actions of humanity and the myriad environmental impacts. Are droughts in Africa, melting ice sheets in the Antarctic, and large hurricanes in the US simply isolated incidents? David Suzuki notes in the film that there is not humanity and nature, we are nature. Paul Hawken's latest book, Blessed Unrest, speaks to the interconnection of the social justice and environmental sustainability movements, saying there is no such thing as a difference between them for that same reason. The book also claims that all of the disparate groups and people in the NPO and NGO sector are all part of one movement, an "immune response" the collective organism of humanity to the pathogens of power, corruption, and degradation.

This film's highest value is that it shows us the truth of interconnectedness.

A note about the leaders in this film. For one, if you can look at Stephen Hawking and still think that global warming proponents are uninformed, you've drank the kool-aid and may never come back. Also, many of these leaders have been saying these things for more than twenty years, but only now is the public starting to listen to what they are saying. Bill McKibben wrote The End of Nature in 1989, and his conclusions are still the same today.

One thing many conservatives don't want to admit, their worldview took us to Iraw on bald faced lies, while the worldview of the barefoot granola hitting the streets on Feb 15 was 100% accurate. Now should we ask, which worldview was more attenuated with the truth?

This movie is transideological, caring about the quality of life for the future of humanity should never be wrapped up transient and petty politics, religion, or business. When sustainability is not built into these institutions, they do not exist for long on this earth.
As Paul said, "Life creates the conditions for life."

Well, perhaps your reading of this review shows someone a little over-enthused on the subject. I contend that watching this movie will give you exactly this empowered sense. As Bill McDonough says we get to image what it means to "re-design design itself." This is really the context of the movie, the path that humanity must walk if our culture is to survive. What a worldview based in truth will not obfuscate.

-Daniel Bell
you can reach me online at wiserearth.org/user/danielbellOn Leo's new eco-flick posted 2 years, 3 months ago 1 Response